UI Architect

Company Overview:

FastSpring is the trusted ecommerce platform, partnering with software and SaaS companies globally to enhance product sales and foster global competition. With over 10 million transactions annually for 3,500+ companies across 200 countries, our platform supports transactions in every major currency. Recognized for workplace excellence and backed by AKKR, we maintain profitability and a diverse, inclusive culture. Join us to grow and innovate in a globally-minded, customer-focused environment.

Founded in 2005, FastSpring is a privately owned company headquartered in Santa Barbara with offices in Amsterdam, Belfast and Halifax.

Position Overview: 

The UI Architect is responsible for designing and developing the visual and interactive elements of our industry-leading full-service e-commerce platform. This role requires a deep understanding of user-centered design principles, front-end technologies, and architecture patterns, with a focus on delivering scalable, maintainable, and high-quality user interfaces. The ideal candidate will work closely with UX designers, product managers, and development teams to create seamless user experiences across the platform.

This role is 100% remote.

Responsibilities & Goals:

UI Architecture & Design Systems

• Lead the development and maintenance of design systems and UI component libraries.
• Establish and enforce best practices for user interface architecture, ensuring consistency and scalability across products.
• Develop reusable, modular UI components and patterns to streamline development and ensure uniformity across multiple teams.
• Create design guidelines, patterns, and documentation that align with user needs and business goals.

Collaboration & Cross-functional Teamwork

• Work closely with UX/UI designers to translate wireframes and mockups into well-designed, functioning user interfaces.
• Collaborate with developers to ensure the seamless implementation of UI components and design systems.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior front-end developers and designers.
• Work with product managers to understand project requirements and ensure the UI design meets functional and technical specifications.

User-Centered Design & Usability

• Advocate for and drive user-centered design practices, ensuring that UI solutions align with user needs, usability standards, and accessibility best practices.
• Conduct design reviews and feedback sessions, ensuring that UI designs are intuitive, aesthetically pleasing, and highly functional.

Technology Leadership

• Evaluate and implement cutting-edge UI technologies and tools to improve development efficiency and user experience.
• Stay up to date with emerging UI/UX trends and integrate new technologies and design patterns into the architecture as needed.
• Optimize UI performance, ensuring responsiveness and speed across different devices and browsers.

Code Quality & Documentation

• Write clean, maintainable, and efficient front-end code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.) and ensure it adheres to established coding standards and best practices.
• Ensure thorough documentation of UI components, patterns, and systems to enable easy integration by development teams.

Quality Assurance & Testing

• Work with QA teams to implement UI testing strategies, including unit tests and integration tests for UI components.
• Ensure UI designs and implementations are fully responsive and meet accessibility standards (WCAG).

Experience & Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience in front-end development, UI architecture, or UX design, with a strong portfolio demonstrating your design and architecture skills.
• Expertise in front-end technologies, including HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and modern front-end frameworks (e.g., React, Angular, Vue.js).
• Experience with design systems, component libraries, and UI frameworks like Material UI, Bootstrap, or custom component libraries.
• 5+ years experience developing SaaS back-end solutions using Java
• Experience implementing RESTful service-oriented public APIs
• Experience designing, implementing, and operating/debugging multi-tier web applications and service-oriented architecture (MVC, SPA, microservices, etc)
• Experience with Amazon Web Services, including EC2, S3, RDS, DynamoDB; experience with Lambda is a plus
• Experience with SQL and NoSQL storage (Postgres/MySQL, DynamoDB/MondoDB) and ORM technologies like Hibernate

• Familiarity with CSS preprocessors (SASS/LESS) and responsive design principles.